$UFKLWHFWXUDO Seelow, AM, et al. 2018. Reviews September 2018. Architectural Histories, 6(1): 12, pp. 1–12, DOI: https://doi. +LVWRULHV org/10.5334/ah.334

REVIEWS Reviews September 2018 Atli Magnus Seelow, Angela Andersen, Christophe Van Gerrewey and Carmen Popescu

Seelow, AM. Review of: Magnus Brechtken, Albert Speer. Eine deutsche Karriere, Munich: Siedler Verlag, 2017.

Andersen, A. Review of: ΣΕΠΤΕΜΒΡΙΑΝA/September 55, Keller Gallery, Cambridge, MA, 2016; !f Istanbul Independent Film Festival, Istanbul, 2017.

Van Gerrewey, C. Review of: Stedelijk Base, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 2017.

Popescu, C. Review of: Shrinking Cities in Romania, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, 2016.

Keywords: Albert Speer; National Socialism; Täterforschung; biography genre; virtual reality exhibition; immersive environment; Pogrom; Istanbul; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Rem Koolhaas; exhibition design; OMA; shrinking cities; deindustrialization; Bucharest; Ceausescu

Demystifying Hitler’s Favorite Architect The new, comprehensive, modestly illustrated bio­ graphy Albert Speer. Eine deutsche Karriere, is by Magnus Atli Magnus Seelow Brechtken, the deputy director of the Munich Institut für Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Zeitgeschichte and a professor at Ludwig-Maximilians- ­Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, SE Universität. Brechtken says this biography originates [email protected] from his interest in the questioning of political mem- oirs. It is the result of many years of meticulous archival Magnus Brechtken, Albert Speer. Eine deutsche Karriere, research — the endnotes and bibliography alone comprise Munich: Siedler Verlag, 912 pages, 2017; ISBN: 978-3- 324 pages — unlike the earlier biographies by Sereny 8275-0040-3, with colour and b&w illustrations. and Fest, which rely primarily on interviews with Speer, and the more recent one published by Martin Kitchen Albert Speer (1905–1981) undoubtedly occupies a ­special (2015), which is mainly based on existing literature. The position in architectural history; his biography differs critical edition of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf by Christian from that of all other 20th-century architects. The impor- Hartmann and others (2016), which has been extensively tance we attribute to him today is due not primarily to commented upon, was also researched at the Institut für his work as an architect but to his role as one of the lead- Zeitgeschichte. ing protagonists of the National Socialist regime, about Brechtken’s central thesis is that Speer exemplifies a which he spoke as a firsthand witness after World War II. ‘type of bourgeois German who consciously became a At the Nuremberg Trials, Speer, despite his tireless com- National Socialist and after 1945 neither had the will nor mitment to the machinery of death and his central role the insight to render an honest account of what he had in Nazi crimes, received only a 20-year prison sentence, done’ (Brechtken 2016: 14). Brechtken regards Speer the which he served until 1966. In the Federal Republic, he same way he thinks of Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942): became a bestselling author and one of the most cited as role models of the ‘uncompromising generation’. This witnesses of the Nazi era. Speer’s portrayal of the Nazi term was coined by Michael Wildt to characterize the type regime and Hitler’s­ circle shaped post-war historiogra- of leadership elite of the Third Reich embodied by the phy, a contribution that has been almost unchallenged. leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office — well- Even the authors of the two posthumous biographies of educated young men who not only joined the National Speer, Gitta Sereny­ and Joachim Fest, could not detach Socialists but also crafted a career within that group, ­themselves from Speer’s point of view on all issues; the and whose uncompromising will knew no norms or lim- biographies are based on conversations with him and its (Wildt 2009). Brechtken says when they melded their ­(Figure 1) to a great extent ignore archival documents ‘ambition, the will to power, and personal greed’ with and historical research (Sereny 1995; Fest 1999). the National Socialist ‘Rassenkampf’ ideology, it was ‘not Art. 12, page 2 of 12 Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018

Figure 1: Cover of Magnus Brechtken’s Albert Speer. Eine deutsche Karriere. a coincidence, but … a calculated consideration in life’. death of Paul Ludwig Troost (1878–1934), managed to Brechtken concludes that for Speer, ‘the will to gain power, become Hitler’s favorite architect and ‘master-builder of to rule and to acquire money [was] a central pattern of his the movement’. Speer is responsible for the buildings of character that shaped his actions until 1945 and drove him the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, the New Reich on throughout his entire life’ (Brechtken 2016: 45). Chancellery in Voßstraße, and, as the general building Brechtken’s biography is divided into two long and more inspector for Berlin from 1937 on, for the monumental re- or less chronologically sorted halves that describe Speer’s planning of the capital. After the fatal plane crash of Fritz life before and after 1945. In the first half, the author Todt (1892–1942) in February 1942, Speer succeeded him very briefly recounts Speer’s privileged youth in his afflu- as minister of armaments. Brechtken thoroughly refutes ent family home in Mannheim and later in Heidelberg. the perspective that Speer was ambivalent towards Hitler He talks about Speer’s early studies in architecture at and National Socialism, as later was disseminated by Universität Karlsruhe, Technische Hochschule München, Speer himself and others. He shows how, already as gen- and Technische Hochschule Berlin, and his work, from eral building inspector, he acted as ‘conquest-manager’ 1927 to 1932, as an assistant to Heinrich Tessenow (1876– and planner for the ‘Endsieg’, and was responsible for the 1950). Brechtken takes care to show that Speer very con- eviction and deportation of tens of thousands of Jews and sciously — rather than almost mistakenly or unknowingly, for forced labour in concentration camps. As minister, he as Speer later claims in his memoirs — joined the National ran the armaments industry, in cooperation with Heinrich Socialists in 1930 and was aware of their murderous goals. Himmler (1900–45) and Fritz Sauckel (1894–1946). In Speer purposefully and relentlessly pursued his career. doing so, Speer skilfully constructed his persona through He focused on gaining proximity to Hitler and, after the morale-boosting slogans and alleged weaponry ‘miracles’, Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018 Art. 12, page 3 of 12 and at times even as a potential successor to Hitler. In the they cannot be trusted. Brechtken deconstructs their end, he commanded about 14 million workers in the arma- influence and meticulously uncovers them, almost sen- ments industry — about half of the workforce controlled tence by sentence, as manipulation or fake. He shows by Germany, which included several million forced labour- how Speer even instrumentalized former employees ers and nearly half a million concentration camp inmates. to conceal his activities and to fabricate alibis after the Even when it was apparent that Germany would lose the fact. The influence of Speer’s memoirs would not have war, Speer continued to raise industrial production very been so disastrous if they — like the memoirs of other efficiently, thus extending the war — and the murders in Nazis — had been only apologetic writings whose pur- the death camps and the death of a millionfold people at pose was to obliterate traces and if they had not exerted the front. such great power on the popular perception of the Third The second half of the book deals with Speer’s life after Reich as well as on scientific research. For example, 1945: the Nuremberg Trials, the twenty years of impris- Speer’s alleged absence from Heinrich Himmler’s Poznań onment in Spandau, and his career in post-war Germany speech in October 1943 as evidence of his ignorance of after his discharge in 1966. In court, Speer only selec- the Holocaust, Speer’s alleged plan of a poison gas attack tively admitted to his crimes and, simulating atonement, on Hitler in February 1945, and his alleged refusal of assumed only an abstract overall responsibility in order to Hitler’s ‘Nero’ order in March 1945 have all been picked camouflage his personal responsibility. He constructed his up as historical facts and repeated many times — all of life story anew, presented himself as a tempted artist and which, however, have been debunked by Brechtken as an apolitical technician, and positioned himself as a wit- dubious stories or fairy tales, floated by Speer after the ness and authority on the perished Third Reich. After his war. Brechtken mainly blames Wolf Jobst Siedler and in release, Speer, thanks to numerous interviews and three particular Joachim Fest for this ominous influence. How autobiographical books — Erinnerungen (1969), Spandauer long Fest adheres to the lies fabricated by Speer can be Tagebücher (1975 and 1976) and Der Sklavenstaat. Meine seen from the fact that even in 2005, Fest — in total Auseinandersetzungen mit der SS (1981) — became a cel- ‘ignorance and remoteness from knowledge’ (Brechtken ebrated bestselling author; Erinnerungen alone has been 2017: 555) — maintains that ‘only a few further works translated into 17 languages. These memoirs, produced [on Speer] have appeared since the early 1970s’ and that in collaboration with the publisher Wolf Jobst Siedler the ‘level of knowledge’ essentially hasn’t changed much (1926–2013) and the historian and future editor of since then (Fest 2005: 11). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Joachim Fest (1926–2006), One drawback of this biography is the brevity with take Speer’s mythmaking to a mass-media level. Speer, the which Brechtken investigates Speer’s work as an archi- ‘good Nazi’, provides with his lies an exculpation narra- tect. It is reduced to a secondary discourse, in the shadow tive that is perpetuated many times over by countless of the rest of his biography. While a number of studies ‘Mitläufer’ (‘hangers-on’) in post-war Germany. To exoner- have explored Speer’s architecture as a product of the ate themselves, they all too readily believe that he was not regime (for an overview see Reichhardt and Schäche aware of the regime’s crimes. (2008: 9–22) and Tesch (2016: 2–8)), investigating it With this biography Magnus Brechtken accomplishes a on its own terms represents a historiographic dilemma: twofold success. First, thanks to his painstaking archival either separating it from its historical context or pursu- research, he effectively uncovers the last myths remain- ing ‘Täterforschung’ (perpetrator research), which has ing about Albert Speer. His biography surpasses previous been rather uncommon in art history. As Winfried work by historians since the 1980s, though he acknowl- Nerdinger and Raphael Rosenberg point out in the pref- edges their achievements and builds on them. Matthias ace of the first volume of their series Hitlers Architekten: Schmidt (1982) and Susanne Willems (2002), for exam- Historisch-kritische Monografien zur Regimearchitektur ple, unearthed Speer’s leading role in the persecution and im Nationalsozialismus, Paul Ludwig Troost (1878–1934) murder of European Jews; Angela Schönberger (1981) has by Timo Nüßlein (2012), ‘Täterforschung’ has become an refuted the ‘Reichskanzlei’-legend; Hans J. Reichhardt and indispensable tool for historic analysis in ‘Zeitgeschichte’ Wolfgang Schäche (1998) uncovered the destruction of (Longerich 2007), but for good reason it is little known in Berlin in the wake of Speer’s monumental re-planning of the the realm of art history: city; Adam Tooze exposed Speer’s alleged armaments-mir- acle (2006: 554–579); and most recently, Isabell Trommer Monographs on bad artists are not written, books (2016) deconstructed Speer’s self-mystification and his role about the life and work of criminals are shunned in in the justification- and apology-discourses in post-war the art world. That is why for a long time there have Germany. Also of great importance was the TV-movie Speer been no historic-critical monographs on the most und Er by Heinrich Breloer, which for the first time brought successful architects, painters and sculptors under Speer’s central role in the Nazi regime to the attention of the Nazi regime. (Nerdinger and Rosenberg 2012: v) a wide audience and also debunked numerous myths; the book accompanying the film reproduced numerous docu- The publication of Speer’s architectural work, which he ments as evidence (Breloer 2005, 2006). initiated in 1978 and which became known to an inter- Brechtken also investigates the Speer memoirs and national audience through Léon Krier’s 1985 edition, biographies. It has taken historiography a long time to is based mutatis mutandis on myths similar to those unmask them as cunning apologies and to prove that in Speer’s memoirs (Speer 1978 and Krier 1985). The Art. 12, page 4 of 12 Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018 attempt to consider Speer’s architecture as a continuation Empathy and the Creation of Virtual Space of classicism and completely detached from its political implications is based, as critics have pointed out, on delib- Angela Andersen erate euphemistic retouches and crude historic simplifi- Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, University of cations (for an overview of the criticism, see Reichhardt Victoria, CA and Schäche (2008: 19–20)). The art historical classifica- [email protected] tion undertaken in the same volume by the art historian Lars Olof Larsson (incidentally the son-in-law of Speer’s ΣΕΠΤΕΜΒΡΙΑΝA/September 55, Keller Gallery, Massa- collaborator Hans Stephan) and the comparison with the chusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, Nordic classicism of the time were both systematically USA, November 5–12, 2016; !f Istanbul Independent Film refuted by Winfried Nerdinger (1986). Tracing the origin Festival, Istanbul, Turkey, February 16–26, 2017. of Speer’s architecture back to Schinkel and other classi- cists proves on close examination to be another fable that September 55 is a virtual reality (VR) exhibition that was invented by Speer in collaboration with Siedler and re­creates the attack, during the night of September 6 and Fest in the memoirs. the early morning hours of September 7, 1955, on Greek, In addition to the studies already mentioned, Sebastian Armenian, and Jewish homes and businesses in a violent Tesch recently investigated Speer’s architectural work pogrom in the Pera district of Istanbul. It was later revealed and published the monograph Albert Speer (1905–1981) that top government officials orchestrated these attacks, (2016) as part of the Hitlers Architekten project, which with the intent to drive minority communities from the documents the architects of Hitler’s regime. This exten- country. The exhibition harnesses the experiential nature sive examination, for the first time, of archival source of virtual architectural environments and recreates the material yields a differentiated picture. Architecturally, urban setting based on archival photographs and histori- Speer first adopts the simple ‘Heimatstil’ of his teacher cal accounts. This review explores the exhibition’s recrea- Heinrich Tessenow; after 1933 he orients himself to the tions of historic settings and its presentation of space as reductionism of his predecessor Paul Ludwig Troost; well as the ways in which the experiential nature of virtual then, around 1936, emancipates himself from this with architecture has been used to generate empathy for mar- an austere eclecticism; and finally, after 1938, proceeds to ginalized and persecuted peoples. a richly decorated monumentalism. Speer’s architecture Several scholars have studied the potential of virtual can only be categorized as eclectic, since he mixes the exhibits for delivering programmed, three-dimensional design principles and the formal vocabulary of different ‘cultural content,’ and the role of artists-as-coders since epochs without any discernible system. Tesch concludes the 1990s (Economou 2007; Merritt 2001; Ronchi 2009). that Speer’s work is from the beginning closely linked Architectural and gaming design embraced newly released with politics and a product of the specific structure of VR technologies early on, but museum and gallery the Nazi dictatorship. Speer’s importance to Hitler was exhibitions have only recently accepted the potential based on the fact that the latter found in Speer a loyal and of VR as a critical artistic medium, in addition to its administratively gifted architect to implement his wishes. recognized technical role as a teaching and presentation Tesch goes so far as to state that ‘the plans made between tool, by using it to explore new ways of helping audiences 1933 and 1945 more clearly [reflect] Hitler’s ideas than to experience and relate to social and cultural themes. The Speer’s’ (Tesch 2016: 225–227). In this sense, Speer is British Museum, for example, employed VR in Mummy: rightly remembered not so much for his work as an archi- The Inside Story (2004 and 2011) to provide access to the tect as for his close connection to Hitler and his role as layered wrappings of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy, minister of armaments, as well as for his obfuscating and in 2015 launched the Virtual Reality Weekend exculpation strategy as a war criminal after 1945. From featuring a VR bronze age roundhouse. Unlike September a contemporary point of view, Speer’s disastrous moral 55, these were didactic examinations of sites and objects transgression should be a thought-provoking warning to that did not seek an emotional response to the featured architects who offer their services to dictators. artefacts. The great affective power of immersive VR and Magnus Brechtken has produced a superbly researched gaming applications (McLay et. al. 2014) has been used in and brilliantly written biography. Thanks to intensive use projects such as Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation of archival material, he not only succeeds in unmask- (2017), which explored the history of abusive, racialized ing the remaining myths about Albert Speer, but also education in Canada by juxtaposing a virtual school with in deconstructing the disastrous influence of the Speer actual recorded interviews with former students. In a memoirs and biographies. One can only hope that similar way, September 55 is a curated visit to a fraught more architectural historians will follow Brechtken’s neighbourhood and opens space for viewers to empathize methodological example and pursue a similarly critical for a few moments with the seen and unseen victims of approach. He sets standards not only for critically inves- that night in 1955. tigating an architect’s life and work from a contempo- In September 55 spaces viewed through VR goggles shift rary ‘Täterforschung’ perspective; his biography also is an during an eight-minute long series of visual and aural important lesson in critically revising architectural his- scapes set within a very specific temporal and ­spatial tory, especially oral history, by scrutinizing memoirs and ­context (Figure 2). The display is part installation and self-portrayals. part historical simulation, documenting the destruction Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018 Art. 12, page 5 of 12

Figure 2: Still from September 55, VR interior. Reproduced with permission of Çağrı Hakan Zaman, Nil Tuzcu, and Deniz Tortum.

Figure 3: Installation view from September 55 at !F Istanbul Film Festival 2017. Reproduced with permission of !F Istanbul Independent Film Festival. in the Pera district, commonly known as Beyoğlu since attack had been planned by high-ranking members of the the departure of its Greek residents following the attacks. Turkish government to allow them to target Istanbul’s As the VR activates, the transition from the empty ­gallery Greeks; their Armenian, Assyrian and Jewish neighbours to the rooms and streetscapes of a virtual, mid-1950s were also subjected to violence. Furthermore, evidence Istanbul results in an evocative yet dissonant sensory showed that Turkish officials had distributed manipulated experience on the cusp of the real (Figure 3). photographs to Istanbul newspapers with the intent In 1955, close to 100,000 people who identified as to exaggerate the damages to the consulate in order to Greek through heritage, language, and religion were living generate anti-Greek sentiment. As an outcome of the trial, as citizens of the Turkish Republic. Mounting tensions Democratic prime minister Adnan Menderes and foreign over the contested island of Cyprus, a minority tax, and minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu were convicted and executed nationalist demonstrations reached a critical point on for coordinating the consular bombing and organizing September 6, 1955, when a bomb was planted within the the attacks in Istanbul’s Pera district. But by the time of Turkish consular compound in Thessaloniki, Greece. A the ruling, most Greek families had already departed from subsequent Turkish court martial trial, convened following Turkey (Vryonis 2005). the military coup of 1960, demonstrated that the bomb Art. 12, page 6 of 12 Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018

September 55 was developed through the collaborative an Istanbul street corner, backlit figures appeared, lean- efforts of Çağrı Hakan Zaman, Nil Tuzcu, and Deniz Tortum, ing from apartment windows while flames crackled and Turkish-born researchers and designers who were trained glass shattered below. The scene changed, and within the in the United States in the fields of design computation, intimacy of a mid-20th-century photography studio, rela- urban studies and planning, and comparative media. They tives and family groups gathered before the camera. Their utilized a digital platform intended to be experienced gentle words to each other formed a soundscape recorded through single-viewer goggles within an empty by Turkish speakers, expressing a myriad of diminutives gallery interior, in combination with sound recordings and affectionate terms. Familial interactions, the adjust- transmitted through headphones. The creators researched ment of a scarf or collar, the settling of a baby, and the media accounts and oral histories covering the events of arrangement of the room itself are reminders of what was 1955, but the show took much of its inspiration from destroyed, who was displaced, and what was irretrievably four photographic archives that connect highly personal lost from the fabric of Turkish society after the attacks. images with the larger story of persecution: the Fahri Zaman, Tuzcu, and Tortum’s design is a compelling, Çoker Archive of the pogrom’s ruins; the Dimitrios virtual recreation of buildings and interiors belong- Kalumenos Archive of the Greek Patriarchate’s official ing to Istanbul’s once lively Greek and Armenian photographs of the aftermath of that night; the archive ­photography community. These urban settings and the of Armenian studio portrait photographer Maryam lives of their occupants were destroyed in a single night Şahinyan, who emigrated to Istanbul as a child when her by government-coordinated thugs. Vulnerable people family escaped anti-Armenian violence in central Turkey throughout history have faced attacks, vandalism, and decades earlier; and images from Osep Minasoğlu’s Studio the confiscation and occupation of their architecture — Osep, which closed when Osep escaped Istanbul to work their homes, businesses, and places of worship. One in Paris following the pogrom. These Greek and Armenian would wish that their route to safety was as simple as photographers were personally and professionally removing a set of goggles. devastated by the events of that night, and it is their surroundings that we see reconstructed in September 55. Criticizing the Museum The VR exhibition design establishes a visual ­meta-chronicle of frozen scenes from the night of the Christophe Van Gerrewey attacks, staged around a simulation of a portrait studio, a EPFL Lausanne, CH small photography shop, and a street corner. Photographic [email protected] prints are mounted on the gallery walls for viewing prior to the VR experience, and also inserted into virtual frames Stedelijk Base, exhibition design by AMO/Rem ­Koolhaas on the simulated studio walls. All these archival images & Federico Martelli, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, have long been available in print and online and used for ­Amsterdam, since December 16, 2017. exhibitions, so the significance of September 55 rests in its spatially grounded interpretation and architectural rep- The new exhibition of the collection of the Stedelijk resentation. The creators have broken down the ­physical Museum in Amsterdam, open since 16 December 2017, is and temporal barriers of a typical exhibition with vir- fascinating and questionable at the same time. The two tual, cognitive spatial experiences, thereby breaching the large rooms in the basement of the museum’s exten- ­emotional distance of the spectator. sion, built in 2012 by Benthem Crouwel, are for the first The immersive medium of the exhibition harnesses the time used to show the permanent collection, and not to capacity of space to address political and ethical issues. house temporary exhibitions. This was a decision director The viewer is confronted with everyday scenes of work in ­Beatrix Ruf made following her appointment in 2014. It is the photography studio alternating with fearful episodes part of a vision for the entire building, based on a division on the street. The evocation of both economic ruin and in three parts: Stedelijk Base shows the collection; Stedelijk the loss of home, safety, and property also alludes to the Turns (in the old building dating to the end of the 19th current vulnerable situation of minorities living in Turkey. century) houses thematic presentations; and Stedelijk This resonates with the decades-long urban relocation of Now is there for temporary exhibitions. Kurds from conflict zones in Turkey’s eastern provinces, On October 17, 2017, three months before the opening of and the recent situation of over two million Syrian refu- the collection display, Ruf stepped down after allegations gees living in Turkey who, seeking safety from a crippling of conflicts of interest. Authorship(s) of this exhibition is war, have begun to test the patience of the administration thus difficult to discern, but the decision to show designs, and the populace. drawings, photography, painting, sculpture, video, and Through a spatial immersion in the Pera district, the installation all together was certainly hers. In the middle installation discourages passive spectatorship. I strained of September, in the Stedelijk’s web-text announcing the my eyes to read the headlines on a newspaper, and looked new display (‘Stedelijk Base Opens’, 2017), Ruf explained, at personal objects in the room. I turned around to see ‘I see the collection as a whole … Each work was created at who was smashing the windows of a burning apartment a particular point in time. By placing different disciplines building, and made my way to a door that seemed as if side by side, we learn more about a period and are able to it might provide an escape route from a horde intent on see new cross-connections’. Nevertheless, art dominates, destruction. As goggles began to transmit the visuals of evidently because the exhibition is structured according Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018 Art. 12, page 7 of 12 to well-known art historical movements, such as Cobra, In the underground space of the extension, Koolhaas and Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. Martelli decided to place steel plates — lasered, grey or Stedelijk Base is, at first sight, indeed rather generic; coated in white, and with a total cost of 1.5 million euros — instead of exhibiting the collection’s individuality, it as folding screens that do not reach the ceiling. Starting presents an unsurprising overview of 20th-century art, from the entrance, a chronological display runs counter- supplemented with furniture, design, and utensils. This clockwise from the entrance to the exit. The obliquely curatorial choice is justifiable because Stedelijk Turns and placed walls create zones instead of rooms, never sepa- Stedelijk Now complement each other and thus create the rated but continuously ‘leaking’; no matter where you are potential to ‘dig deeper’ (a main category at the Stedelijk’s or where you look, there is always something else to see, website, next to ‘visit’ and ‘what’s on’). The exhibition close by or farther away. design by Rem Koolhaas and Federico Martelli from AMO ‘You can focus on many images at the same time’, (the research unit of OMA) is, however, anything but basic Koolhaas explained (Smallenburg 2017). Simultaneity is or unsurprising. One could state that without the archi- indeed the starting point for group or collection exhibi- tects’ contribution, Stedelijk Base would have been in no tions, but the question is whether what you see becomes way as adventurous as it looks now. This is true, at least, meaningful. Is the presence of many images and artworks for the underground room. The smaller rooms upstairs, just a matter of providing information (as Ruf described with art from 1980 onwards, have been arranged without it), or does their proximity bring about new insights? Koolhaas and Martelli’s intervention. They appear as an Curating an exhibition means grouping and ordering uninspired encore, structured according to a rather ran- artworks in such a way that they ‘cure’ each other from dom set of themes such as ‘AIDS’ or ‘violence’. the artificial museum constellation to which they belong, Ruf chose to work with AMO to develop a new kind taken away from their original context (such as a studio of museological display, which she deemed necessary or a private collection). In Koolhaas and Martelli’s design, to respond to the challenges of an ever-growing digital such groupings are never architectonically reinforced but culture. In the press announcement from September, she rather denounced: instead of drawing attention to ensem- said: bles or individual works, the scenography continuously points to paths that invite you to explore more — other The widespread use of the Internet has given us objects, periods, genres or artistic choices are anxiously a new way to gather information: we browse, see waiting to be looked at, and — in the end — every sceno- masses of images in one go, connect them and graphic construction is precisely that: a construction, an make combinations. All of this is expressed in invention by historians or curators. Stedelijk Base: in a fantastic concept designed by The consequences of this scenographic approach are AMO, you can move freely through the space, see far-reaching. The chronological backbone of the exhibi- amazing combinations, and make your own con- tion (against the outer walls) is affected or breached by nections. the architectural setting of the steel plates. The Grand Narrative of Art History is attacked by means of the criss- crossed screens, but in the space that opens up, no small,

Figure 4: Rem Koolhaas and Federico Martelli of OMA, Plan Stedelijk. © Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Art. 12, page 8 of 12 Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018 engaging, or divergent stories are being told (Figure 4). On Shrinkage as a Current Condition This also has to do with the deliberate lack of acknowl- edgement that individual works or objects might have an Carmen Popescu aura. There is not enough room, around or in between, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Bretagne, to look at them from a distance, and — in particular — to Rennes, FR contemplate them without immediately having to see [email protected] something else (Figure 5). With Stedelijk Base, Koolhaas and Martelli seem to Shrinking Cities in Romania, National Museum of renounce the traditional task of architecture to ‘house’ art- ­Contemporary Art, Bucharest, April 20–October 9, 2016. works and to assign them, as Paul Valéry stated as early as 1923, ‘their place, their task and their constraints’ (Valéry In April 2016 the exhibition Shrinking Cities in ­Romania 1960). At the same time, the architects present this experi- opened in the National Museum of Contemporary Art ment as a new beginning and a necessary innovation of the (MNAC) in Bucharest. Two months later, the hosting museum in the 21st century. Koolhaas has often declared institution initiated a debate on its potential displace- himself to have been ‘aesthetically formed’ as a teenager ment from its current location in Ceaușescu’s gigantic in the 1950s by the exhibitions of the former director of House of the People, now known as the Parliament Palace.­ the Stedelijk Museum, Willem Sandberg (Graafland and This review will examine the exhibition on ­shrinkage De Haan 1996: 224). The question is what kind of aestheti- and the debate on the institution’s displacement as cal formation can a museum offer, if it models itself upon two symptomatic­ instances of the same phenomenon: contemporary phenomena such as Instagram or Google ­Romania’s struggle with the tensions of post-moderniza- Image Search. What is the effect of playfully criticizing art tion against the background of political, economic, and, history, art historical conventions and canons, in a world not least, cultural­ mutations as they have taken shape in where all these things seem more absent than ever? In the decades ­following the 1989 turnover. Stedelijk Base Koolhaas is targeting a ‘new kind of museum In the past few years, the theme of shrinking cities has visitor’ (Smallenburg 2017), but the result turns out to be been a hot topic in the fields of politics, economics, geog- a new kind of museum space as well — a museum defined raphy, architecture, and urban planning, giving rise to ini- by simultaneity, superficiality, individual impressions, tiatives such as the Shrinking Cities International Research objects without aura, irreducible complexity, the futility of Network. The manifestation of this phenomenon in interpretation, and the absence of authority. Traditionally, Romania, however, remains largely unexamined. Major pub- museums were bastions where these phenomena were lications on shrinkage (Oswalt 2005; Oswalt and Rieniets kept out, but Koolhaas explains his interventions in such a 2006; Pallagst, Wiechmann, and Martinez-Fernandez 2014; way — and this is not the first time in his career — that criti- Bontje and Musterd 2014) hardly include any Romanian cizing his design all too easily leads to conservatism. And case studies. The exhibition Shrinking Cities in Romania yet it remains to be seen whether Stedelijk Base indeed is a therefore not only introduced the topic to a large Romanian future-oriented mutation of museum’s exhibition space or audience, but it also filled a gap, the size of the region of if it will turn out to be a temporary fad. Romania, in the current research on shrinkage.

Figure 5: Photo of Stedelijk Base by Gert Jan van Rooij. © Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018 Art. 12, page 9 of 12

Shrinkage in Romania may be considered a play in developments in periurban areas repolarized the territory three acts: the first act consisted of the modernization and strengthened social injustice. process that took place during the Romanian Kingdom This process is reflected in the three sections of the exhibi- (1881–1947); the second act continued this moderniza- tion, each developed by a different team under the curatorship tion through the oversized scale of industrialization during of Păun Constantinescu. These sections are also presented the communist regime; and the final and third act, which in the unconventional publication with short essays on is still in progress, involves massive mutations brought Romanian shrinkage, printed on loose sheets of paper, form- about by geopolitical changes in the post-1989 era. The ing a sort of DIY catalogue, which will be republished in the curator, Ilinca Păun Constantinescu, chose to focus only form of an edited volume, with a preface by Philipp Oswalt. on this third phase of post-industrialization. Old industrial The first section was set up as an ‘information filter’. towns, new socialist cities, and major urban centres all Three maps providing concrete data on shrinkage cap- diminished progressively after 1989. Half of the Romanian tured the size of the phenomenon both in Romania and cities lost a fifth of their population, which affected not in the entire world. A large map of Romania indicated the only their physical entity but also their social and cultural demographic evolution of the cities between 1989 — the identity. year the communist regime in Romania was overthrown — Several factors accelerated this process of shrinkage: a and 2012, supported by statistical tables offering detailed massive deindustrialization that is still ongoing triggered information on a century of urban dynamics (1912–2012). unemployment and poverty, engendering identity issues A second map of the country was imagined as an interactive within diverse communities; a decreasing birth rate; and tool, inviting visitors to pin a red flag if they thought that last, but not least, recent geopolitical mutations. After their city had not decreased, or a black one if they thought 1989, economic and other forms of migration emerged, it had (Figure 6). The third map situated Romania and its which intensified when Romania became a member of major cities within the global framework of shrinkage as the EU. After decades of industrialization, the constant it evolved in the second half of the 20th century. A wide flux towards the urban areas was reversed. The result- display of international publications showed the range of ing dynamics of shrinkage, sprawl, and illegal urban in-depth analyses of shrinkage in various countries.

Figure 6: Demographic map of Romania. Photo by Carmen Popescu.

Figure 7: ‘The Phenomenon’ installation by Tudor Constantinescu with IDEILAGRAM. Photo by Carmen Popescu. Art. 12, page 10 of 12 Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018

The two other sections of the exhibition revealed the this symbol of the communist regime, itself responsible complex interplay of economic, demographic, social, and for so much human and urban grief, seemed not only cultural causes of shrinkage through various installations. incompatible with the museum’s cultural mission but The second and largest section, ‘Urban Conditions — A morally problematic. Arguments for the new location, on Direct Investigation’, consisted of six installations. Among the other hand, were pragmatic: the domain on which the these, ‘Post-Industrial Stories’ (by Ioana Cîrlig and Marin House of the People is located was largely empty, so why Raicu) and ‘Waiting for August’ (by Teodora Ana Mihai) not take advantage of it? Some added the thrill of play- dealt with the population of shrinking communities, ing with political symbols: did the avant-garde not always including the sensible subject of children left behind in defy those in power? the country by their parents who went to work in the EU The founding director, who had accepted the offer (Figure 7). The third section, ‘Reactions. Interventions’ of the prime minister to install the museum in the focused, by means of an art installation (by Ion Barbu and Parliament’s house, implicitly defended his choice at Andrei Dăscălescu), on the mining town of Petrila, a min- the opening of the museum, stressing the necessity to ing agglomeration being among the most symptomatic adopt different criteria for exhibiting contemporary art, case of shrinkage. after the examples set by Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Shrinking Cities in Romania was perceived as an impor- the Ludwig Museum, and the Tate Modern (Oroveanu tant event, not just because of its size, but especially 2004: 19–21). The artistic director similarly pointed to because of the great number of connected manifestations the East European tendency, after 1989, to demystify the such as workshops, lectures, theatre plays, and film pro- Communist symbols by means of derision and parody. jections. Trying to grasp its subject by as many means as This statement implicitly aligned the awkward imprison- possible, Shrinking Cities appropriated tools from urban ment of the new museum within the House of the People sociology, anthropology, contemporary art, and social and with the same tendency: ‘The MNAC has to be perceived political sciences. At the same time, this methodological as … a space for the exercise of freedom and normality, diversity resulted in a certain fragmentation and dilution in the most abnormal place of Europe. Anti-political cor- of its discourse. Some installations or artistic interven- rectness in a building dedicated mainly to political power’ tions, for instance, did not aim at contributing to scholarly (Balaci 2004: 32–40). knowledge but at arousing debate by performing a mili- Few years after the inauguration of the MNAC, a new tant act. The impact of the exhibition on its visitors was predicament complicated the situation: it was decided prompt: in the midst of the political campaign for the local that the Cathedral of the Nation — commissioned after administrative elections in June 2016, an online newspaper 1989 as both a redemptive and expiatory act after the demanded that the theme of the exhibition be addressed communist period — was to be built in the backyard of by the candidates in their campaign (Costea 2016). the House of the People, or in other words in front of One essay in the DIY catalogue, ‘From the Difficult- the MNAC. The museum was henceforth caught between to-Access Backside of the Parliament Palace’, was the the symbols of political and religious power in Romania, unintentional inspiration for a debate about yet another ­unintentionally forming a triad. political issue (Zahariade 2016). Alluding to the remote- Twelve years later, this attitude of derision seems to have ness of the MNAC, the venue of the exhibition, the text lost part of its efficiency, especially after experiencing all touched upon a long-time controversy: why should the hassle of daily transportation to and from a place dis- the main museum of contemporary art in Romania be connected from the city and with the Cathedral of the enclosed in a piece of totalitarian architecture? The Nation standing next to the MNAC. Thus, in 2016, the author of the text did not realize that the bizarreness new direction of the museum launched a debate ‘Where of the situation was actually itself the result of an act to move MNAC in Bucharest?’ The e-flyer announcing of (political) shrinkage — hence, ironically, the venue the debate argued that ‘the problem in 2016 is not that of the exhibition could be seen as yet another way of MNAC is located in the House of the People, but that it ­considering shrinkage in postsocialist Romania. cannot function as a 21st century institution within the The controversy of the location had been an issue Parliament Palace’. Numerous architects, art critics and since the museum opened its doors in 2004 in a sec- artists participated in the debate. Unexpectedly, many tion of the Parliament’s Palace, which had undergone an of these did not favour the displacement of the MNAC. architectural readjustment by Adrian Spirescu. One of Instead, they addressed issues of urban and cultural the museum’s inaugural exhibitions in 2004, curated by ­politics, while wondering if Romanian contemporary art Ruxandra Balaci, called Romanian Artists (and Not Only) still had the competence and the commitment to critique Love Ceaușescu’s Palace?!, addressed the polemic about mechanisms of power? the location of the new museum, which had already The debate about relocating the MNAC was in many begun to spread rapidly beyond the Romanian borders, ways ‘collateral damage’ of the problem of shrinkage. On gathering more cons than pros. The negative side of the the one hand, the very location of the museum is the argument was that the MNAC’s location gave rise to polit- result of the political and institutional shrinkage engen- ical incongruity, was an ethical faux-pas, and made it a dered by the change of the regime. On the other hand, a decentred and isolated venue. One fifth of old Bucharest new location would be a manner of feeding Bucharest’s was demolished to make place for the House of the sprawl, even if the new venue were a building affected by People, and therefore the association of the MNAC with shrinkage such as a former industrial site. Not to mention Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018 Art. 12, page 11 of 12 that building a new venue would be a rather conven- Speer, A. 1969. Erinnerungen [Reminiscences]. Berlin and tional ‘modernist’ response to a present day situation that Frankfurt am Main: Propyläen and Ullstein. favours alternative solutions. Shrinkage is a direct conse- Speer, A. 1970. Inside the Third Reich. Trans. by R. and C. quence of modernity — a term that was strangely absent Winston. (Translation of Erinnerungen.) New York and from the discourse on the exhibition or the language used Toronto: Macmillan. during MNAC debate. By stepping into post-modernity — Speer, A. 1975. 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How to cite this article: Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C. 2018. Reviews September 2018. Architectural Histories, 6(1): 12, pp. 1–12, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ah.334

Published: 01 October 2018

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